Triumphant Twins Execute Exemplary A level results at Merchiston

After the long summer break, the School burst into life yesterday morning as our Upper Sixth leavers returned to receive news of their A level results.

Archie and Dougal Balfour, from Edinburgh, joined Merchiston in 2006 and have both gone from strength to strength. Both boys have achieved an outstanding set of grades, including a good collection at A*, and will be matriculating at the University of Durham and the University of Cambridge next term. Our second set of twins, Ben and Tom Powell from Fort William, joined Merchiston as boarders seven years ago. Both achieved very high grades, which enable them to study Marine Biology at St Andrews University and Electronics at Edinburgh University respectively.

Despite the national dip in A level results, Merchiston bucked this trend with another extremely robust set of results. Merchiston's A level pass rate this year was 100%. Moreover, of the 244 individual candidate results, 128 (52%) gained grades A*/A; the School's combined A*, A and B pass rate was a highly pleasing 81%. There were also some extremely impressive Scottish examination results, the highlights of which included Cameron and Matthew achieving the only As for non-native speakers in the whole of Scotland at Advanced Higher Mandarin. These results maintain Merchistons exceptional performance at A level over a significant number of years, and demonstrate that its boys, as a cohort, are amongst the highest achieving boys in Scotland.

86% of Merchistons university applicants gained admission to their University of first or second choice. Moreover, 12 applicants will be pitching their wits against other highly talented students at Universities currently ranked in the top 10 globally (QS Rankings).

Headmaster, Andrew Hunter, comments: Every young man is distinct and different; we salute the achievements of every single member of last year's Upper Sixth Form, especially those boys who have faced personal challenges during the year. Having checked the results, the ALIS predictions made by Durham University have been exceeded in almost all cases. This is what really matters.